Catharting all over you.

To those who know Smash...

bmc — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:35:16 GMT

Friends, Mo and I have just returned from visiting Smash in the hospital at UCSF Parnassus. She is currently being moved out of the intensive care unit into a normal room. As most of you don't yet know, on Sunday she manifested an aggressive bacterial infection in her right arm. It is partially a complication of surgery during her breast cancer treatment during 2005. The current diagnosis is cellulitis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulitis), but there are other less pleasant possibilities. She has been on broad-spectrum antibiotics since arrival in the ER on Sunday afternoon, and today is sufficiently stable to be moved out of intensive care. For the past three days, Mo and I have been spending all of our free time (as well as Mo's entire workdays) in the hospital with Smash. Keeping her emotional state stable and her spirits up is critical to beating the infection and recovering quickly and fully. In short, she needs company. She has not lived in San Francisco for a long time, and her family is in the Midwest. Mo and I (not to mention Smash) would super-duper appreciate anyone who can take the time to pay her a visit. If you have met Smash and spent any time with her, you know her to be smart, caring, compassionate, funny... She's super. Please help us support her through what is truly a shitty situation. If you want to know more, including her location and visiting hours, please contact Mo or I as soon as possible. Tribe message, email, phone, whatever. Fastest response by SMS or email to Mo. Mo: 203-675-2438, m.khodadoust@gmail.com B: 408-205-0031, bmc@section9.net

If somebody doesn't post a comment soon, I'm going to throw a tantrum. THEN you'll all be sorry.

bmc — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:08:00 GMT

Y'all a buncha without-me-playa-goin-ass motherfuckers. Also, GAH! I certainly hope I can bring this project to some kind of useful conclusion in another two days. TWO DAYS? Christ. I'm fucked. In three weeks, I've had to learn two AMS (Application Management System--the portion of the JME that is responsible for managing the lifecycle of Java applications on an embedded device) architectures, Windows IPC (*barf*), and the JSR 211 specification, and then mostly rewrite the JSR211 code because the new architecture that I'm porting to is so different. I'm being a whiny bitch--this is my JOB, after all. But I'm also in China, which is, itself, a little stressful from time to time. This morning as I was almost ready to head out of the hotel to come to work, the thought popped into my head, "Oh, shit, it's still CHINA out there, isn't it?" As though "China" were a weather pattern I had been hoping would blow over. So.... Ordering breakfast by pointing; wild gesticulations with the taxi driver to get him to drop me off where I want to go, instead of where he seems to want to take me. Also, fast-ish food courts in and near office parks are, it turns out, mediocre the world over. At least Mo is home. She's gonna be lucky if I don't break her on Friday night.

I have no idea if this is even cogent to someone other than me. Let me know. :-)

bmc — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:56:03 GMT

Time flows through me, in a hotel room high above Chaoyang. I have come to Beijing to do my small part in the accelerating enrichment of the elite of China, and of those other nations that own and are owned in turn by parts of it. Time flowed through me in the eternal, unchanging summer afternoons of childhood, just the same. Misdirecting mitosis; strengthening and building the striated muscle that allows me to do; bringing to seed, bloom and fruition the brain that allows me to be. I didn't know, then, that the vibrating rush of the unfolding was wearing on me. Or, maybe I did. I curse Frost for warning me that the memory fools. Does this monkey tell himself lies about the past, to make the narrative more pleasing? The flow of events more satisfying? Serendipitous? I cetainly feel in this moment, and in many others recent, a helplessness in the apprehension of inevitability. Whatever I choose, the world will continue to be. However full my accomplishments, however tragic, comic, pathetic my failures, I am one small dog. What minute change in the stream--whatever chaotic, dynamical perturbation I can create--it seems I can not predict. And I have watched others, women and men that I admire, whose poise direction serenity I seek after, err in recollection of their own days and concerns. There was a terror in seeing it. But as the time slides through me, its bulk filling the channel of my being as water fills a sluice through a dam, each drop that passes by is gone. So much water was before me once, and now so much is gone behind. And it is all full. Each moment pregnant with possibility, a tree laden with fruit to pick, to crush between my teeth, to feel slide cool and wet into my throat on the way to becoming me.

last.fm

bmc — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 02:23:17 GMT

I got wiring loose inside my head I got books that I never ever read I got secrets in my garden shed I got a scar where all my urges bled I got people underneath my bed I got a place where all my dreams are dead --Porcupine Tree, "Blackest Eyes"

Risk and Reward

bmc — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:06:01 GMT

Just said "Goodbye" and hung up the phone with Mo for 9 days. She has had a lot of anxiety and nervousness about going to the burn "alone." But she is a rockstar, our friends are rockstars. Rockstars are responsible for making the fun. She will keep herself safe and healthy, or I will be very put out. It's 3 AM in China. VPN proxied web access is slow. Only ssh is really "reliable" most of the time. When I have some time, I want to hook Alex up with a VPN connection through some infrastructure in the States so he can get secureish and privateish access. China is a strong contender for Most Interesting Phenomenon in the World right now. It's deeply different. In some ways, 80,000 years worth of different--back to when some humans coming out of Africa went West, and some East. It is very old, and very, very new. It does seem to be changing rapidly. One hears this in the Western media often. But being here, and talking with Chinese residents, it's clearer. More on this later. Tomorrow, Badaling and the Great Wall, and then the Summer Palace. I'll get at least four hours of sleep. The sights won't see themselves, don'tcha know. Night.

Beijing #2

bmc — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:51:26 GMT

So, here it is, my third day in Beijing. It's somewhat alienating to be in a place where I have no hope of understanding anything anyone says, and I can't read any of the signage. My and Mo's friend Alex lives here, though, and speaks Mandarin. It's a relief to have someone here who knows me, and for whom I have some social context. Last night, Alex tended bar at a large club called Banana, so I went to hang out. Being white and Alex's friend, the bar staff made sure I had a beer in my hand all night. Today I have a slight hangover and smell like cigarette smoke. I guess some things are the same here--bars are still boring. :-) I got hit on by a prostitute at the bar. Her English wasn't very good, and I have no idea what she was saying to me. Prostitution is big, here. I wasn't checked into my hotel 90 minutes before someone slid a card under my door advertising "massage" services. Their menu of "Service item," reproduced verbatim here for your entertainment, includes: * TheRussianyoungladymassage * Theladymassages * Walesexualfuntionobstacle * Thefootbottomcaresthemassage I was tempted to call just to find out what a "Wale sexual function obstacle" might be. I guess if you're one of those unfortunate few who is only able to become aroused in the presence of cetaceans, they're happy to bring a porpoise by for your benefit? Who knows. The Chinese give the Japanese a run for their money in the "weird" department, for sure. Yesterday, I was awakened at 10 AM by a phone call from a woman whose only command of English seemed to be repeating the question, "Massage?" She did not appear to understand, "No." Yesterday, I was fitted for a three-piece suit for the wedding. They'll have it put together tomorrow night, apparently, at which point I go back for another fitting. The suit, as well as five custom dress shirts, all in high-quality fabrics, came to $260. Unreal. The suit is going to be this long, many-buttoned, almost Victorian-looking affair. It should be hot. I picked the design out of a catalog, and then talked with the tailor about making it slimmer, more fitted. Something that took me by surprise about foreign travel is that economies vary not just in scale, but in, um... proportional composition, I guess? There's probably a word for this in economics. But what I mean is that a car doesn't necessarily represent the same multiple of monthly income here as it does in the States, or Argentina, or elsewhere. Ditto a house or apartment, or a meal out. So it's not like the usual guideline in the US that your rent or mortgage should consume 25%-40% of your monthly income applies everywhere (or anywhere) else. It never occurred to me that those sorts of ratios would vary. But, in retrospect, there's no reason they should be fixed, I guess. The market for any particular product or service would be completely dependent on the particulars of production, availability, demand, laws and regulations. And the demand for it would be dependent on all sorts of cultural factors that it would take considerable knowledge and experience to begin sorting out. I feel vaguely embarrassed or inadequate that I don't have anything to report regarding the Great Wall, or the Forbidden City, or the Summer Palace, or any of the "omigodi'minchinaihavetogoseethe-" kinda things. After all, I've been here 72 hours! What the hell am I doing with my time? :-) And tomorrow morning, I go to work! Weird.

teh chin0rz

bmc — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:54:58 GMT

Hm. So I'm going to China. I have to do a software port onto a new phone platform, and the rest of the engineering team is in in Beijing. I'll be leaving middle or end of this week. I'll be back on 9/7. This means I miss three weeks' worth of wedding preparations (out of three months available to us), as well as Mojgan's preparations for, departure to, and return from Burning Man. I can't say I'm happy about any of that. On the bright side, obviously, I do get to go to China. Mo's friend Alex is an American who speaks Chinese, and is currently living in Beijing. I'm relieved to know somebody there--three weeks seems like a long time, especially if I'm going to be working a lot. I'm not planning on working the weekends, and if I get away with that, I'll have three of them to explore. I'd like to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, but I also want to see China as it is, and how it's changing. It occurs to me to go check out some open-houses, since personal property ownership is on the rise; it would also be interesting to see things like how health care operates. I'm going to blog the trip on LiveJournal. This will be a little experiment. I almost never log onto LJ anymore, but most of the people who are interested in the trip are over there. I'll be copying the posts to my tribe blog as well. If anyone has any experience or advice to offer me on first-time travel to China, business travel specifically, and/or Beijing, please jump in and let me know.

40s lead to blunts?

bmc — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:16:38 GMT

The scientific research apparatus has unearthed a heretofore unknown connection between drinking malt liquor and (wait for it...) smoking marijuana. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-07/uab-mll072607.php I'm SO glad that these things are receiving proper scientific scrutiny.

24 Hours of American Liars

bmc — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:10:17 GMT

If this was a real democracy, we'd be out in the streets shutting the nation down until Bush resigned, taking Cheney with him. The unions would call for general strikes, as would immigrant rights groups, poverty groups, families of soldiers. All seventy percent of us. Clogging the cities and towns, demanding that we take back the country from the people who want to harm us. But this is not a real democracy. It is a group of geographically tied together people with pretense to democracy, fearful of actual power because it means actual responsibility for themselves, for each other. http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2007/07/24-hours-of-american-liars-heres-what.html

Death

bmc — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:03:10 GMT

I've lost a number of loved ones, to events ranging from cancer to violent suicide. It's always hard--it's almost always too soon, and almost always unfair. My father has gastro-intestinal cancer, diagnosed at stage 4. Until two years ago, this was a quick and painful death sentence, along the lines of pancreatic and other intra-abdominal cancers--typical prognosis is 3-6 months. However, my dad got the best cancer at the best time--a series of drugs have recently come out of FDA trials that block the out-of-control mitosis signaling mechanism in my dad's cancer, and essentially pause it in place. It simply prevents the cancer from continuing to grow. I can't believe how lucky we are to live when and where we do. It took me a long, long time to come to terms with the reality of death. I remember, at eight, when my mother's father died of cancer. I was not allowed to attend his funeral, a decision on the part of my parents that I've always regretted. Regardless, my family's assurances that he would be "watching us," or that we would be reunited with him in death ourselves, always rang hollow. Hollow in the same way as the exhortations of the priests in church when I was young, that we must behave according to a set of arcane and nonsensical rules inherited from our remote, pre-scientific, iron-age ancestors. How could any thinking person believe this, for which there is absolutely no evidence beyond the assurances of others who, themselves, offer no evidence? So, it has been intuitively obvious to me since childhood that "being" dead will be just like "being" unborn--which is to say, it won't "be" at all. This seemed, for a long time, to be horribly unfair. I only get one life? What if I fuck it up? What if it ends before I'm "done?" I've always thought, and continue to believe, that if I could take a pill that would extend my healthy youth for a thousand or ten thousand years, that I would do so unhesitatingly, for this very reason. To see more of history; to accumulate more experience; to carve and to craft myeslf more perfectly and in more ways. To simply be deprived of further opportunity to sit under a tree in the park without care, and watch the world go by, and after less than a century? If there really is an escape hatch, and I find it, I will toss myself out it without a second thought. It's little wonder to me that humans, accordingly, have manufactured a wide panoply of myths about what happens to us when our bodies wear down and cease to function. The simple, shocking reality of death almost demands it. Valhalla, Heaven, Nirvana, reincarnation, ancestor spirit worship, animism--surely, we think, the consciousness and identity of each of us has to go SOMEWHERE after we die. But whether I like it or not, we are electrochemical machines. More complicated than a mouse or a snake or a bacterium only by matter of degree--a striking and significant degree, certainly, but we are not special. The universe does not "care" about us, unless we make our definition of "care" uselessly expansive. We are machines. Accidental, though perhaps inevitable, and evolved machines, but still machines. This infinitely entertaining experience of consciousness is an emergent, and again, accidental and possibly inevitable, property of our neurological complexity. It's not a vial of precious liquid, that will be transferred to some other container. When I slap a mosquito, or (*shudder*) hit a skunk with a car, there is no reason to think that the mosquito-ness or skunk-ness gets teleported to mosquito or skunk heaven. There is no reason to believe that the -ness is sucked into a giant, churning reincarnation machine that queues it up to be born into the next higher organism that happens to come around. Although, I realize now that what I just said is not true. There IS "reason to believe" these things. The reason is fear. Fear of oblivion, fear of the end of our experience of all things. But many nights, I go to sleep and do not dream. I have no experience of the passage of time in this state, no sensation of unbeing. What I can remember of not being born is similar--nothing. What's wrong with nothing? Fear seems to me to be the anticipation of disphoria. Anticipation of pain, of humiliation, of harm, of deprivation of control. The suspicion that things are, or soon will be, very out of joint for us. I experience fear often--at the commencement of a new and risky venture, when putting a chemical into my body that will transform my perceptions of reality. I have learned to think of fear as something like an emotional immune response. My brain sees something potentially unpleasant coming, and the fear-o-meter ticks up a few notches. I've learned to take note of the fear, and examine the stimulus to see if it's really worth adjusting my behavior to avoid. Reacting to fear itself, as though it were a thing, makes me a victim of my world. However, I can't avoid death. I do not want to fruitlessly expend my mental energy (and very limited time) retelling prehistoric myths assuring myself and my companions that we can. I would rather live the moments that I have in constant awe and fascination of how excellent it is to be alive in this universe. I would rather see my life for what it is--brief, fleeting, and precious. To be eaten enthusiastically, like ripe fruit. To be shared with wonder, like a precious stone or a profound insight. And that much more valuable because when it is done, it will be gone.

Some folk'll never eat a skunk, but then, again, some folk'll.

bmc — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 17:37:12 GMT

Holy shit. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-06-07-evolution-poll-results_N.htm?csp=34 And then I spat coffee all over my lap.

A marriage is not a wedding

bmc — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:49:40 GMT

And a wedding is not a marriage. Our marriage, it seems, will be the cross of two traditions. The Persian, Iranian wedding tradition, and the Bay-Area-Hippie-Industrial-Techno wedding. Two stately and honorable traditions, to be sure. FLASH: The future will only get weirder.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments

bmc — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 21:17:56 GMT

On Monday night, 12th March 2007, Mojgan and I agreed to be married. I had planned to do this on our anniversary, July 4th weekend. I was going to drive her up to the Marin headlands, or to Big Sur, or something dramatic and romantic like that. Well, I blew it. We were lying in bed, talking about things and stuff, and I was consumed with my elation and comfort and happiness with having her in my life. And I just blurted it out. She did not seem surprised. The "yes" came immediately, with a smile, as though she had known I would say it before I knew myself. The plans are only nascent--we don't know when, where, with whom, or any of that business yet. Feel free to offer suggestions. Also, I recommend that you attend Otter MaDneSS!!! on Sunday and congratulate us. Gifts of valuable jewelry and drugs^H^H^H^H^H^Hflowers will be gratefully accepted. w00t!

i carry your heart with me

bmc — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:18:48 GMT

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) ee cummings

Pathetic, petty kitchen tyrants

bmc — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:54:26 GMT

Wow. So, do you think the New York Times KNEW they were publishing an article about spousal emotional abuse? Or is it unintentional? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/dining/14beta.html?em&ex=1171688400&en=0e91b4bb8de0c3ce&ei=5087%0A "My wife is such an incompetent twat in the kitchen. Isn't it magnanimous of me to humor her? You may worship my penis now." I wonder how these men treat their spouses when they're NOT being interviewed by a NYT reporter.

Keeping on

bmc — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 00:51:54 GMT

Put your hands on the wheel Let the golden age begin Let the window down Feel the moonlight on your skin Let the desert wind Cool your aching head Let the weight of the world Drift away instead Oh, these days I barely get by I don't even try It's a treacherous road With a desolated view There are distant lights But here they're far and few The sun don't shine Even when it's day Gotta drive all night Just to feel like you're OK -Beck

I want the terrorists to win!

bmc — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 05:16:58 GMT

You are a terrorist-loving, Bush-bashing, "blame America first"-crowd traitor. You are in league with evil-doers who hate our freedoms. By all counts you are a liberal, and as such cleary desire the terrorists to succeed and impose their harsh theocratic restrictions on us all. You are fit to be hung for treason! Luckily George Bush is tapping your internet connection and is now aware of your thought-crime. Have a nice day.... in Guantanamo! http://www.gotoquiz.com/do_you_want_the_terrorists_to_win

God

bmc — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:39:12 GMT

I found this such an excellent, concise statement of feelings very close to my own. -------------------------------------- "God." Once again, I'm going to give good, liberal progressive Christians the vapors and point out that there is the destroyer, the idea that ruins young minds and corrupts education: god. Ham has god on the brain, and he exploits other people who have god on the brain to give him millions of dollars so he can run around the country and put god on the brain of the next generation. I know. Many of you support science, and you carefully set aside your religious biases when assessing ideas about the world—you've managed to find means to cope with this infectious lie. That doesn't change the ugly fact that it is a lie, a crippling corruption, and that many people don't even try to sequester their superstitions and cultivate their rational side. When I hear Christians make excuses for their religion, it's like hearing smallpox survivors praising their scars. "It didn't kill me, and these poxy marks add character to my face! Those deadly cases have nothing to do with my own delightful disease." So we do nothing. We let the infection simmer along, encouraging our children to get exposed to it, praising it, howling in anger at those who dare to say the obvious and point out that it's a poison, a mind-killer, vacuous noise and evil nonsense. We let the absurdity flourish. We know exactly where the vileness grows, in the cesspool of religion, yet we veer away from confronting the source, draining the contagion, eliminating the vector of ignorance. We encourage it to thrive and it leads to well-meaning parents pressuring their impressionable kids into gulping down the ignorance-laced koolaid. -PZ Myers http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/02/im_sure_ken_ham_is_sincere_in.php

What is a booty?

bmc — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 23:02:18 GMT

So Jonathan and I, with the inestimable assistance of Simran, have produced a number of raw studio recordings of WttSB. Simran and I will be mixing it over the next few weeks. I've been amazed at how much emotion the process of musical creation has awakened in me. I mean, it's a song, and we made it. As Jonathan said, "It came out of our heads!" I dare say it even rules somewhat. It definitely has me listening to more hiphop. Word to the smart bitches. They're the ones I like.

Tuesday 10/31 -- My Birthday!

bmc — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:02:03 GMT

All Y'all, On Tuesday, Halloween, my birthday, my friends and intimates will convene at my place, 7PM - 10PM. There will be wine, cheese, cake, conversation, etc. We may wander out for drinks somewhere afterwards. Please RSVP so I know how many to expect! Also, send me a message if you don't know where I live!

Meanwhile, on the OTHER side of the bipolar mood swings.

bmc — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 18:07:14 GMT

Dude. Whooo fucking hoo. Foley scandal, North Korea, presidential approval ratings occasionally in the high 20's. In my dreams, the democrats hand the repubs their ass on a plate in November. Then the congressional investigations begin--Plame, WMD intelligence, the list goes on. By next fall, the fucker is impeached and removed from office. The rest of the world demands extradition to the Hague. Shrub, Cheney, Feith, Rumsfeld... all tried, convicted, and hung by the fucking neck until dead. I can dream, can't I?

The end is very motherfucking nigh.

bmc — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 03:35:38 GMT

So, we're weeks or months away from provoking war with Iran, and we have leaders who think using tactical nuclear weapons is just a faboo idea. We're some number of decades, small or large, away from tipping the global ecology into cascading warming cycles that can't be stopped once they start. I'm posting this here because, well... because I'm having a little bit of a freakout. I've begun to wonder if what I'm doing is what I should be doing. Should I have a more concrete plan for moving towards the arctic circle, where shit will be more habitable in 50 years than the temperate zones? Get established before the masses come, so that the next generation of my tribe will have some chance of fending off the hordes fleeing the desertification of the planet from the equator out? If so, who will take care of my cats? Is all of this completely beyond my power to do anything about? Should I stop worrying my pretty little head, and attend more orgies? Should I chill my shit out, because none of this is as serious as I think it is? What the fuck? Help.

Wisdom

bmc — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:49:39 GMT

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

How your country works

bmc — Thu, 04 May 2006 18:49:45 GMT

"Brad R" put this so well and concisely that I had to repost it here. http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/002690.html ====================================== At its heart, the modern Republican election machine is nothing more than a scam to put money in the pockets of right-wing billionaires. It works like this: the rich conservatives don't want their taxes raised , so they want to keep Democrats out of office at all costs. That means they have to elect Republicans. But the problem is, the demographic for people who want to cut rich peoples' taxes just ain't very big. This is where the conservative "values voters" come in. The rich Republican elite promise to end abortion, ban gay marriage and seal off the U.S-Mexico border, even though they have zero intention of following through on any such promises. Once elected, they swiftly cut taxes and then do their best to ignore the concerns of the Christian right. In the past, they've blamed their inactions on obstructionist Democrats, activist judges or Bill Clinton's penis. But now that they've controlled all three branches of the federal government for the past four years, they're running out of excuses.

across the way

bmc — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 08:09:31 GMT

the absence of you follows me as though it is, itself, my companion i regard it throughout the day, this not you i reflect in it my ideas, thoughts, occurrences, epiphanies as i would were you here to get the perspective of you that i remember my awareness feels thin as butter spread over too much bread your quick, calm, quiet sarcasm turns on its head my uneasy anticipation of twilight bringing a red orange harvest moon but at least in your presence in the bright, warm humming shimmering glow of your chestnut brown only it's not because it's purple, pink, translucent and you are on fire your absence will be filled with our exhausted satiation joy and relief to sit in the autumn light in the tea garden and warm our faces as one turned to the sun